MY MOTHER

My mother was born in 1914 in a family that in the end counted 13 children (and 2 more had died very soon after birth). She had been the fourth or fifth child, I think. I still can name all of them: To, Tine, Cor, Kees, my mother Willemien or Miep, Jan, Jaap, An, Martha, Leny, Nel, Wim, and Marjan.
I know little of how they lived, only that my mother's mother was very strict, and my mother told me that she had been called the queen of the Paradijshof, because of the cleanness of her little home.
My mother loved to read, but had to do that mostly hidden behind curtains, before she was found out and send to bed.
When she was 12 years old she had to leave school, proudly she told us that the headmaster had come to their home and asked that she was smart enough to follow further education.
She attented eveningschool, but what she learned there, I do not know.
At first she was hired as a 'hitje', a girl that did little jobs in a well to do family. Later she worked in one or more factories, like the ABC wool, the tinned food, and the button making factory, all  (except the button), still existing in Leiden when I was a kid.
She was afraid of people (as she herself called it). She was beautiful, she sang marvellously, and as you can see in the photo loved to be elegantly dressed.
I loved to dance in her wide skirts later.
She worked in the çooperative kitchen when one day my father came to eat there, several days in a row, and he had asked her to meet with him.
She had declined at first, she found him too forward, but her friend had convinced her to give it a try.
She is already married in the photo, and in the extra I show a portrait of much later date (before 1980 anyway) wearing my strawhat, and to my surprise I see now that she is wearing a similar one in the old photo.
And one of the day of her marriage.

I loved to see the galleries of the silly photos, and I have given more hearts, to: JohnW, pkln, Cheeryoscuro, Tigger101, and Muguet.